


Missing You

by coalitiongirl_ficlets (coalitiongirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, post 4b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl_ficlets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina is careful to never, never miss Emma Swan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing You

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by the lovely zoe (who i don't think has an ao3?): "swan queen. Regina uttering the words 'i miss you' to Emma."

She’s careful to never, never miss Emma Swan.

Missing Emma means acknowledging that Emma matters, that Emma is anything to her other than  _annoyance_  or  _mortal enemy_  or eventually  _co-parent_. Missing Emma means that there is some tiny part of her that had come to life when Emma had appeared in Storybrooke and loved all the fire and the fighting and the endless battles, and  _that_  is just…unacceptable.

So no, she doesn’t miss Emma. Not when Emma jumps into another world and Regina is isolated in her home, without Henry and without her job and with no angry mobs as much as indifference. She has been deemed a  _nothing_ , a queen with no kingdom or name or son, and she quiets stray thoughts of Emma, who’d have at least come by to pick a fight.

She doesn’t miss Emma when her mother is whispering poison into her ears or when she’s strapped down with electrodes pinned to her head. Emma tends to come charging in to the rescue but somehow that grace has ceased for Regina, and she closes her eyes and determinedly  _does not care._  (Snow White rescues her one of those times and no one does the other- there is no rescue from Mother, not from others and not from herself. There is only obedience and then heartbreak.)

She doesn’t miss Emma when she’s alone in the mines and  _Regina, I–_  are the last words she’ll ever hear. Emma Swan is there at her end and somehow it seems appropriate, that the two of them are bound together in beginnings and endings. Their story has always been inevitable, and it’s almost unsurprising when Emma joins her at the trigger and they save the world together, breathless and bright-eyed.

It’d be absurd to miss that. It’d be absurd to miss Emma when she’s halfway across the clearing in Neverland, her eyes open and fixed on Regina’s from where she’s lying on her bedroll. She doesn’t speak or smile and neither does Regina, understanding passing between them from their silent glances, and Regina aches desperately and refuses to consider why.

And maybe it’d be natural to miss her in the year that follows but Regina doesn’t  _do_  that, doesn’t miss Emma Swan no matter where she is or what Regina had given her before she and Henry had left. She misses Henry with all the misery that it brings, thinks often of him and Emma. (She hopes they’re happy and marvels at how little her own pain matters when it comes to what she wants for them.) And she yearns for him to return to her- with Emma, she supposes, and doesn’t mind that concession at all.

(Emma returns with a hand on her arm and indescribable warmth, with eyes that smile and words that sound like declarations and maybe it’s only just simple gratitude but it feels as though they’ve begun something new.  _Did you miss me?_  she asks laughingly after a magic lesson that nearly ends with the vault in flames. Regina rolls her eyes and snorts, mocking.)

She refuses to think of Emma after Marian, not to loathe her or attack or and certainly not to miss her. She’ll keep her distance but Emma is inconsequential now, unforgivable and their relationship never to be mended again.  _Friends_ , Emma calls them, and Regina’s heart begins to thaw.  _Shots?_  Emma asks, and Regina didn’t miss her before, but something hollow within her is full to bursting again with Emma’s smile.

And so maybe they’re something like friends after that, but Regina still will not miss Emma because that implies expectation- or worse, dependency. Regina can get through a lunch break just fine without Emma Swan barging in with a new pick-me-up each day. Regina can handle dinner with her son without throwing a casual invite to Emma on her way out of work. Regina might have grown accustomed to Emma’s presence but she certainly doesn’t miss her when they aren’t together. She isn’t  _Hook_ , trailing after Emma like a trained dog. She hasn't—

—She hasn’t seen Emma in two weeks, her dreams invaded by darkness and death and a dagger with her best friend’s name of it. She wakes up in tears and she cradles Henry when he cries and she thinks of nothing other than Emma Swan. She kisses Henry’s forehead and wonders what could be if she’d kiss Emma’s forehead, if she loves hard enough to break an impossible curse. (She wonders what might have been if she’d taken a step closer just once when they’d fought and kissed away Emma’s incessant arguments instead of snapping back.)

She curls up on the couch in her office one night, her fingers tracing the letters etched onto the dagger, and the tears spill and spill and spill, glistening against  _EMMA SWAN_  and bringing it to life. She tastes metal and salt when she presses her lips to the name, to the soul that it had taken and the woman who’d borne it for her; and she murmurs against the blade, a confessional at last, “I miss you.”

Arms slide around her waist and lips press to her ear, and if they feel a bit jerky, alien and unsure of contact, Regina finds that she doesn’t care just yet. “Took you long enough,” Emma whispers.


End file.
